Commercialization of Food Consumption in Rural China

by Fred Gale, Ping Tang, Xianhong Bai, and Huijun Xu

Over 60 percent of China's consumers live on farms. Consequently, a large share of the agricultural commodities produced in China is consumed on farms by the rural population. This study of rural food consumption patterns in China finds that rural households rely on self-produced commodities, especially grains and vegetables, for a large share of the food they consume. However, the study also finds that the reliance on self-produced food has fallen since the mid-1990s as rural households purchased an increasing share of their food.

Keywords: Rural, food, consumption, expenditures, China, agriculture, subsistence, households, survey, elasticities, commercialization

In this publication...

• Entire Report
• Report summary
• Abstract, Acknowledgments, Contents, and Summary
• Introduction
• Self-Produced Food Minimizes Expenditure
• Commercialization of Rural Food Consumption
• Household Expenditure Analysis
• Implications of Rural Food Commercialization
• Conclusions
• References
• Appendix
• Appendix Tables